Wonderful and thought-provoking fable of a man whose life was spent aboard a ship.

Rating: Null/10 (13 October 2002)

"The Legend of 1900" is unique in many ways, the first being that it is an Italian film with English-speaking characters. Tim Roth who has been cast as a villian most of his career does a remarkable job as the adult '1900', the simple man, a gifted piano player, who had a his own particular take on life. The story begins as a ship worker is crawling around the ballroom floor, looking for valuables lost by the wealthy guests, but instead finds a baby. It is the New Year 1900, thus the baby's name. He is raised in the bowels of the ship until at about age 8 or 10 he is noticed playing the piano. He eventually becomes the ship's piano player, and his reputation spreads until Jelly Roll Morton takes a voyage and challenges '1900.' In the end, he lit his cigarette on the hot piano strings!
some SPOILERS - The film actually starts in more modern times as the trumpet player friend of 1900's is selling his horn and telling the 'Legend of 1900' after the shopkeeper shows him a patched-together record of the piano composition that was lost years earlier, parts hidden in the piano. He tells the story in a series of flashbacks, and at the end finds out the old ship has been stripped of all valuables and is to be sunk the next day by dynamite. But he just knows '1900' must still be aboard the ship, because he knew he never could leave. So he borrows the record and a player and goes to every different part of the dilapidated ship, playing the song, hoping to lure out '1900'. Earlier in the film '1900' said, "My music will never go anywhere without me" and that is why the master disk never left the ship until the piano, with the broken recods hidden in it, ended up in the shop also.
more SPOILERS - '1900' almost left the ship once, he was going to visit NYC and a pretty girl he met, was half-way down the gangplank, suitcase in hand, well-wishers waving goodby, he paused a long time, threw his hat into the water, and went back on the ship. Only years later, as he and his friend spoke in the bowels of the old ship did he explain, "I looked at the city and could not see an 'end.' A piano has 88 keys, you know where it starts and where it ends. But the city alone has hundreds of miles of streets, how do you know which one to take, which girl to love, which house to buy? I could not see an 'end' so I had to stay on the ship." And he did, he had become so accustomed to the small, contained world of the ship that he could not cope with the greater world. Even though it is a movie, one second we are seeing '1900' with a smile, musing about heaven, and the next moment a horrific blast. It is hard to not get jolted by the image.
At 120 minutes this film requires some patience, and the desire to see good character studies over non-stop action. It is impossible to describe in words how good Tim Roth is in this role. We always knew he could play the bad guy, this film crystallizes his overall talent as one of the best in the business. A remarkable story, a legend, with a remarkable character. A superb film.